Freestyle 101: Sheek Louch and Bully

It’s hard to explain what a huge fan of Sheek Louch I am. But I’ll try…

As a member of The Lox, alongside members Jadakiss and Styles P, he helped put New York street hop on the map in the ‘90s. After getting discovered out of Yonkers, New York by Mary J. Blige, The Lox signed with Puffy to Bad Boy and began their rise to fane, which found them teaming with Biggie, leaving Bad Boy after one hit album amidst the legendary "Free The Lox" campaign, and signing to DMX's Ruff Riders label for their sophomore effort. Eventually they bailed and start their own label and crew, D-Block.

As a member of The Lox’s D-Block crew, he helped discover hood artists like Bully, Team Arliss and J-Hood and took on 50 Cent in a legendary diss track sparring match that continues on to this day. And as a solo artist, he is responsible three amazing albums (Walk With Me, After Taxes and the brand new Silverback Guerilla) and some of my all-time favorite mixtapes (Year of the Wolf, Still A Wolf and The Howling). Yes, Sheek Louch is one of the best on the mic out there, no doubt.

So image my surprise when after months of waiting for Sheek to roll out to L.A. on tour, he agreed to film a Freestyle 101 while we were out in The Big Apple. I was even more stoked when he invited us out to D-Block’s studio in Yonkers to hang with him, his protégé Bully, Lox sniper Styles P, and famed in-house engineer Poobs. It was truly an honor to be shooting in this legendary studio that I had seen in so many Youtube videos and where so many of my favorite songs were recorded. (Thanks to Supa Mario, Koch and Lamont for making it happen!)

Now Sheek and Bully did not actually realize they were supposed to freestyle for this, and were a bit hesitant at first, having spent the whole day doing interviews and smokin’ blunts. It was late and these guys were about ready to pack it in. But once Sheek heard this bangin’ Messiaz / Freddie Foxx collabo beat, he leapt right out of his chair, hit the record button on Pro-Tools, jumped in the booth and started going at it right off the dome. In fact, you can hear him telling the cameramen to start filming at the very beginning (we hadn’t even mic checked yet!), so this was about as real and off impromptu as it gets, folks (he even threw in references to Call of Duty and Madden for you game heads!). Thank God we were rolling….